Daniel Meindl

Daniel Meindl (24 September 1900-14 August 1944) was the Gauleiter of Banska Bystrica in present-day Slovakia under Nazi Germany during World War II.

Biography
Daniel Meindl was born in Ruzomberok in Austria-Hungary (present-day Slovakia) to an ethnic German family on 24 September 1900. Meindl volunteered for the Austrian Army in 1918 during the last year of World War I, and he was deployed in the war with Italy in Venetia. Meindl left the army after Austria-Hungary's defeat in World War I in February 1919 and Meindl became a member of the Nazi Party in 1932. He was arrested in a roundup of Nazis by President Engelbert Dollfuss in 1934, but he was able to escape from prison and flee to Nazi Germany. In 1940, when Slovakia was placed under German control during World War II, Meindl was made the Gauleiter of Banska Bystrica. Meindl persecuted the Jews and Slavs of Slovakia, among other groups, and for these crimes he was wanted by the Allied Powers. Meindl was killed in a Polish Resistance bombing on 14 August 1944 during a meeting with other officials in Nowy Sacz, Poland on 14 August 1944.